It's time for my annual World VGC rant

I have just heard from a highly-respected Pokémon forum that once again, Australia has been banned from participating from next year's Video Game World Championships. Once again, Australia has failed to prove themselves worthy of matching skills with the rest of the world.

Are we not good enough? Is our Government that pathetic? Are we as a people too criminal? What exactly did Australian Pokémon fans, as a group, ALL do wrong to deserve being banned?

Of course, we CAN participate if we buy an expensive plane ticket to a country that hadn't been banned, and participate with them, so if you're devoted enough, and not studying or on benefits, you could attend worlds and protest against the unfair go Australians are getting.

I couldn't find anything regarding why Australia can't participate, but I did observe the oddity that despite Australia getting the PAL localizations of games (from what I can tell, at least), the franchise as a whole in Australia is not managed by TPCI. Does that mean that in Australia the franchise is overseen by the main branch of The Pokemon Company in Japan? It's confusing.

I couldn't find anything regarding why Australia can't participate, but I did observe the oddity that despite Australia getting the PAL localizations of games (from what I can tell, at least), the franchise as a whole in Australia is not managed by TPCI. Does that mean that in Australia the franchise is overseen by the main branch of The Pokemon Company in Japan? It's confusing.

In Australia, the franchise is overseen by Nintendo Australia. The Pokémon Company International does not have a branch here.

The reason they won't include Australia in the World Championship series, which has only been said to me in private via their Support Centre, is because it's too expensive for them to hold Video Game tournaments here, and since we live so far from the rest of the world, they can't fund plant tickets to Worlds either. Nintendo Australia might be able to do it, but for some reason they couldn't convince TPCi to let them.